Meanwhile, the Sonics' stuff either is unadulterated whimsy by investigative journalists who need to be investigated, or pure wishful thinking by dullards who enjoy spreading such deception.

Yes, Thomas and Larry Brown would love to have Evans, one of the league's hardest working rebounders, but devoid of offensive skills, which is why coach Nate McMillan habitually benched him last season during fourth quarters of tight games.

And, yes, the Sonics definitely are trying to move Evans, as well as Vladimir Radmanovic and Flip Murray. All three fairly attractive free agents re-signed for one year during the offseason. In other words, they weren't that attractive or lucky enough to be unrestricted like teammates Ray Allen, Jerome James, Antonio Daniels, Damien Wilkins and even McMillan himself; each harvested offers from various opponents that Seattle was forced to match, pass on or raise.

Evans, Radmanovic and Murray, for assorted reasons, have felt distinctly extraneous since. But just because they're readily available and glad to go, the Sonics aren't about to give them away. At the same time, it's almost impossible to get equal value for Evans because he only makes $1.1M. Radmanovic earns $3.1M while Murray banks 895G, so the same salary snag applies. Complicating the problem is that each player owns a no-trade clause, meaning they're in the heart of every negotiation.

Assuming the player or players agree to a destination management's only prospect of getting fairly compensated is to enlarge the deal for someone of more consequence, and that means insisting Fortson ($6.2M/$6.59M) or Vitaly Potapenko ($3.3M/$3.67M) be incorporated.

Having laid that out there, I'm here to tell you, again, the Sonics aren't the least bit interested in assuming Malik Rose's obligation past this season ($7.5M/$7.1M/$7.6M), or taking on the burden of Jamal Crawford's five-year, $43M tab in any kind of trade, with or without Fortson and/or Potapenko, unless the Knicks are prepared to part with Frye. Lee won't get it done.

In other words, the Sonics and Knicks have very little to talk about and, consequently, despite what has been written, have talked very little.

For argument sake, let's say the two teams are close to some kind of an arrangement. How emotionally rescued should Knick fans feel? A 14-37 subterranean squad after last night's loss in Dallas, losers of 10 in a row and 16 of 17 doing business with a 20-31 outfit of misfits, losers in five of their last six.

Yeah, that ought to turn around both teams.

So, this is what we've degenerated into; cartoonists enrage us with their insensitivity toward religious icons, sports writers enrage us just being religiously ignorant.